WHO expects more suspected SARS cases

More suspected SARS cases are likely to emerge because the symptoms match those of common winter diseases, the World Health Organization…

More suspected SARS cases are likely to emerge because the symptoms match those of common winter diseases, the World Health Organization said today as it investigated the latest case to surface in China.

A waitress (20)  in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, is suspected of having deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. Her case surfaced days after China confirmed its first SARS infection since last year.

But the third of three Hong Kong television station workers who came down with fever after returning from southern China has tested negative for SARS, a government spokesman said today.

Health authorities have been worrying for months about the reappearance of SARS this winter. The disease has the same symptoms, including a relentless fever and dry cough, as several other  respiratory diseases.

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"Some of these diseases may also give rise to atypical pneumonia. It is likely that numerous other suspected [SARS] cases will be reported over the coming weeks," the WHO said on its Web site.

The WHO has sent a team of four doctors to Guangzhou to investigate  the disease, particularly its transmission.

SARS first appeared in southern China in late 2002 and killed about 800 people worldwide last year - nearly 350 of them in China.